Super Street Fighter IV is one of the most addictive video games I’ve ever played. With a constant stream of opponents online, 35 characters to play, and tons of cool moves to use, I just want to keep playing one more match.
I’m not a hardcore fighting game fan so I couldn’t tell you the nuances in the changes Capcom made to the game’s balance, but I can say that the game feels very good and its very fun to play, and that’s what matters. At its core, Super Street Fighter IV is technical enough for pros and very easy to get into for new players with its 2-D gameplay and Street Fighter II basics. Expanding on the trials from the previous version, Super’s challenge mode seems tweaked more for beginners as it takes you through step by step for each character’s special moves and combos. However many of the combos require very specific timing and the ability to see the computer demonstrate the moves would have been nice.
The graphics seem touched up since the last version, and the new stages are lively with crowds cheering on in the background. The skyscraper level based on Final Fight is my favorite because of its music featuring a rocking guitar to pump up the intensity of the fight. There weren’t quite enough stages in the last game, so the addition of several new stages was needed, though I wish there were a few more. They weren’t able to add character specific stages but you can unlock an arranged music option that plays the character themes during multiplayer matches instead of the stage themes.
Super adds 10 new characters, with 8 returning characters like Cody and Guy from the Alpha series, Ibuki and Dudley from Street Fighter III, and 2 newcomers with Juri, a sadistic tai kwon do fighter, and Hakan, a Turkish wrestler that uses cooking oil to enhance his attacks. Unlike the previous version, all 35 characters are available from the start, with the only things to unlock being the player titles, special options, and the character colors and taunts that are earned just by playing matches. Having all of the characters available from the start is a nice change as learning all of the characters becomes the heart of the game.
Each character now has two ultras to choose from which are just as flashy as the previous ones, and I may be mistaken but the animation time for them seems to have been trimmed down. The animated story cutscenes in arcade mode are higher quality than last time, though the intro prologue movies are just still art images with a panning camera, and I preferred the light hearted scenes from the original. While the single player arcade mode is there and brings back the classic bonus stages (Oh, my car!), competing against others is the game’s main appeal.
The online portion has been simplified down to just a few modes with the 1 on 1 ranked battle, team battle, tounament mode (with a recent update), and the much requested endless battle, where you can take turns with your friends in a queue to play the winner. Endless battle is also a good way to watch how other players play along with the new ability to save and view replays of your own matches and download others. The blind character selection and not seeing your opponent’s ranking until the match starts is a nice touch so that players won’t bow out before starting a match because of a player rank. As I’ve said, playing online is highly addictive, and turning fight request on during arcade mode still seems to be the fastest way to find opponents.
If there’s one thing I could complain about, it’s the transitions to start matches compared to the shorter downtime in the original Street Fighter IV. While the game moves quickly from each menu, the extra animation to load the map select screen adds some unnecessary time to starting a match when most people will choose random anyways. (Xbox 360 users can reduce load times before matches if both players have the game installed on their hard drive.)
The original Street Fighter IV brought the series back to its roots with the essential gameplay of Street Fighter II over the more technical Street Fighter III, making this fighting game more accessible for everyone while still having a lot of depth. With the addition 10 new characters, new stages, and refined online modes, Super Street Fighter IV is a substantial update to the original release that makes this a more complete version of the game, and at the lower price of $40 it’s a great deal.
Grade: A
Buy: Super Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360)
, Super Street Fighter IV (PS3)
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